The African Development Bank Group's 7th Development Evaluation Week opens today, convening policymakers, evaluators, development practitioners and partners to examine where the evidence points on making regional integration work -- and how to apply the lessons learned at scale.
The theme -- "Catalysing Development Impact Across Africa's Borders" -- and the timing are deliberate. The establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area in 2019 created the world's largest free trade area; attention across the continent is now shifting toward making it operational, as borders remain expensive obstacles to African growth -- slowing goods, fragmenting markets, constraining scale and hampering the free movement of talent.
The event lands as Africa pushes ahead with a cluster of flagship continent-wide initiatives -- the AfCFTA, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) and the African Union's Agenda 2063 -- whose returns depend on integration working in practice, not just on paper.
Convened by the Bank Group's Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) in collaboration with its Regional Integration Coordination Department (RDRI), Evaluation Week 2026 will assess the record of completed cross-border projects to pinpoint what has worked, what has not and why -- strengthening the use of evaluative evidence in regional and national decision-making, and supporting better design and delivery of cross-border initiatives.
Crucially, EvalWeek 2026 looks beyond physical infrastructure and transport corridors. Grounded in recent evaluative evidence, the three-day (15-17 June) program explores regional integration through a comprehensive, people-centered, and forward-looking lens.
Participants represent a deliberate mix of those that design cross-border policy, those that finance it and those that measure the results of interventions.
The programme runs across six sessions at the Bank headquarters in Abidjan and online. Day one (15 June) kicks off with a session on advancing Africa's regional integration, followed by "Scaling Regional Impact: Integrated Economic Corridors and Regional Public Goods." Day two turns to people and markets and includes sessions on evidence-informed pathways to harness Africa's demographic dividend and on accelerating trade, industry and investment for shared prosperity.
Day three focuses on climate -- "Evidence for Climate Action in Africa: Scaling What Works Across Borders" -- ahead of a closing session to consolidate priorities and next steps. The week is expected to generate durable outputs including a Priority Action Brief, a digital knowledge platform and a special synthesis Product to carry the findings into implementation. The hybrid event will feature engaging talks, interactive fireside chats and a multimedia exhibition space.
For more information and to register, click here.
